Back to You
by Celestine Manning
Summary: After everything that's happened can Grissom find his way back to Sara? Will Sara even let him get close?
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I do not own these characters or anything from CSI. I'm just taking them out to play.

AN: In this story I'm ignoring anything that happened between Grissom and Sara after they were officially together. In fact I'm pretending they were never actually together. The Miniature Killer still happened but Sara and Grissom were never in a relationship. Lets just call it creative license. Enjoy!

EDIT: Sorry for the mistake! A paragraph that had gotten cut just wouldn't die and tacked itself onto the end there. My apologies!

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There were plenty of reasons she had nightmares. Her childhood fueled them often enough. Blurring memories of hands striking out against her, the ominous clink of liquor bottles, the smell of the occasional emergency room. Sometimes her nightmares were of the lab exploding. She would be walking down the hall, and then in slow motion she would see the windows breaking, her body being tossed across the hall by the blast, the glass shards everywhere. They were flying through the air, littering the ground, propelling themselves into her skin. Or she'd be on her knees, on the cold tile floor contrasting the hot panic that flooded through her. A piece of ceramic pressed to her throat, Afraid she was going to die at any moment.

The worst were from the car though. Feeling the rain, the wet, the mud all around her. Knowing that she's been kidnapped and trapped. And then the walking and the heat and the desert and the knowledge that this might even be worse than just staying under that car and accepting her fate. Sometimes in her dreams she dies.

Sometimes she wakes up screaming. Tears streaming down her face, her sobs echoing around her room as her pulse beats a thousand miles a minute in her throat. Her sweat drenches her sheets causing them to stick to her clammy skin. Her body shakes with tremors that won't stop for hours.

Sometimes she doesn't wake up. Sometimes her body is so desperate for sleep that not even her night terrors can rip her from its grasp. On those nights after the demons have had their fill of her the dreams change. It is on those nights that she remembers him. Moments that she refuses to acknowledge ever existed during the day steal into her mind as if to soothe her. His voice in her ear "honey this doesn't look good" as his hands, ever so gentle, inspect her palm. Sometimes it's his face, panicked and in shock and fear as he presses himself against the window, hoping he isn't going to see her throat cut. Other times it's the way his eyes would look at her when he thought she wouldn't notice. Just a light touch, a moments linger. Like a butterfly gently resting for the briefest moment.

The lack of sleep doesn't affect her job though. She's a professor of criminology at a small college in Maine. The change suits her. She is awake during the day; attempts to sleep at night and all of her interactions are with the living. The air is crisper here; the snow that lays thick on the ground is soothing to her. If she tried really hard she could almost forget a lot of things. Almost.

She rented a small house at the edge of a small lake that had been frozen over for a month. Her furniture filled it nicely ad she was glad she'd paid to ship it out there. Having her familiar furniture around her helped it feel homier. Especially since all her years worth of knickknacks from Vegas were still packed away in boxes in her attic. Some things hurt too much.

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Grissom hadn't been the same since Sara left. She had planned it well. She requested off a three day weekend and everyone on the team was happy she was finally dipping into her vacation time and taking some days for herself. Unbeknownst to everyone however she had given her notice two weeks earlier to the higher ups and asked them to keep it quiet. Given her recent experiences with Natalie they quickly agreed. They probably would have agreed to anything. Everyone walked on eggshells around her now. Monday night rolled around and Sara never showed up for work. Worried, Grissom drove over to her apartment but no one answered his knocks. He showed his ID to the building manager and made up open the door to her apartment. Inside he found her apartment empty. Her furniture was gone, the fridge was empty. He stood in her bedroom, a room he has never been in before despite his cravings for her and he realized she was really and truly gone. When he got back to his office he found that someone had placed Sara's resignation forms in his desk.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: They're not mine.

The snow around her little house was melting. Fresh spring air was being carries in on the soft breezes and early flowers were pushing their colorful heads forcefully up into the world. Sara's first semester teaching was half over and she still loved it. She loved planning out her lessons, loved teaching them to her students, watching them understand the concepts. Her days working at the college were a breath of fresh air coming through an open window and chasing the lingering stagnant air of Las Vegas away. Things were easier out here. At least during the day she could pretend that her past wasn't real. The nightmares were still there just as bad as ever though. But she expected that.

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While Sara was flourishing in her new life Grissom was deteriorating. He didn't sleep, barely ate, worked constantly and threw himself into every case with a rabid single minded focus. His hunger for justice seemed to increase tenfold and his drive was unstoppable. He worked to avoid his demons. And everyone around him knew that demons name was Sara.

Catherine especially was worried about him. She saw through his attempts to convince everyone that he was fine. She knew that inside he was shattered and she hated Sara for it. Sara knew what this would do to him. Yes, after her encounter with Natalie Sara had been worse and god knew that girl needed some serious therapy. But this was unforgivable.

This most recent case was worse than usual. Lately every case had seemed especially bad. Four foster children, two boys, two girls, and their foster parents had been murdered in their home the night before. The adults had been shot first in their sleep, one shot each straight between the eyes. It was over before they'd had a chance to wake up and realize what was happening. The house was on the outskirts of Vegas and there weren't any neighbors living close enough to hear the shots coming from inside. One of the boys, twelve years old had come out to the hall though and that was where he was found. Lying on his back, a pool of blood around him, eyes staring at the ceiling, two bullets in his chest. The younger boy, five, was found huddled in bed with the younger girl, age four. He had tried to shield her but the bullets had found their targets. The last girl, nine, seemed to have been the focus of all this. She had been dragged from her room, flailing and fighting, through the puddle of blood in the hall, leaving a thick smear down the stairs and outside. Out there on the grass her attacker had cut her throat, leaving her unable to scream and then she was left in the grass to die.

The scene had been found the next evening by the foster mothers coworker who had been sent to the house when she hadn't shown up for work and calls to her home and cell had gone unanswered.

Swing shift was already too swamped with other cases to take this one on too so right from the beginning Night shift had been called in. As far as they were concerned this was the only case happening that night. Grissom could tell that they would be logging a lot of overtime with this one. They worked steadily through the evening and night processing the scene. Night turned to day and still they were there, going over everything with a fine toothed comb. This case touched everyone; there was no way it couldn't. Everyone was on edge, everyone wanted to do their best, to be perfect at their jobs to bring these people to justice. Every once and awhile Catherine could be seen hiding a sniffle and the few drops that fell from her eyes.

Slowly as they went on twenty four hours straight people started to drop. First went Greg, heading home for a shower and nap. Then at hour twenty six Nick and Warrick took their leave. Finally at hour twenty seven Catherine gave up. She needed to go home and hug her daughter. Reassure herself that she was still ok. She made Grissom give her his word that he would leave soon but even though he promised he would she knew he wouldn't. When she came back four hours later, before any of the boys she brought him a change of clothes and something to eat. Together they transferred the mountains of evidence from the scene back to the lab and began sorting it. Finger prints together, photos sent to be printed and studied, blood sent to the lab.

Grissom sighed wearily. "This one is bad Catherine." His voice was low and quiet.

"They're all bad Griss"

"Yeah but.." His voice trailed off. "This one is worse."


End file.
